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Our goal is to help the four students in our group build a bottle aquarium, the second part of the
self-contained ecosystem that they are creating. The objective of this activity is to allow students to
observe a self-contained aquatic/terrestrial ecosystem, and in this way understand the concept of an
ecosystem is and how organisms interact with each other in this system and with their environment. In
addition, we want them to understand the concept of a model: this small synthetic system is a model for
a larger pond or stream ecosystem. Models are important in science, and we want students to
comprehend their usefulness. This lesson also connects with the three areas of the Framework,
encompassing a number of practices, cross-cutting concepts, and core ideas in life science (see the Why
section below). It supports the development of Common Core Standards in English/Language Arts
relating to understanding subject-specific texts and participating in group discussions (see below).
Finally, this lesson provides a way to explore our overarching questions. Kellys question has to
do with differentiation. Since we have already worked with these four students, we have a better idea of
their temperaments and learning needs, and we have planned this lesson with their needs in mind (see
Accommodations) Liannas overarching question has to do with helping students establish a growth
mindset. These fifth graders were enthusiastic participants in our first lesson, which indicates that they
are interested and engaged in doing this kind of science. Our goal is to sustain this interest while
introducing important scientific concepts such as ecosystems and modeling, and engage them in
scientific practices. In this way we hope to help them see themselves as scientists, capable of conducting
investigations and understanding scientific concepts.
How
This is a materials-based lesson, which is a highly effective form of science instruction because it
allows students to engage in scientific practices themselves and to construct their own knowledge. Our
technique for the previous lesson, and which we will use here, was a round robin-style procedure, in
which each student had a list of steps and took turns reading the steps and performing each step with
the materials. This format provided a systematic and efficient way for all students to handle the
materials and remain involved in the activity. One change we are making is to provide observation
sheets at the beginning of the lesson so that students can make observations when they are not
handling the materials; we hope this will help keep them focused on the lesson. In addition, we plan to
be more purposeful about having students identify each part of the ecosystem, and start to describe
their interactions, and use scientific vocabulary. Finally, we plan to ask more purposeful questions: we
plan to do this at the beginning to have them reflect on what they have already done and predict what
might happen next; we also plan to explore the content of the lesson through a group discussion as the
very end, in which purposeful questions will push students to reflect on their observations and construct
their own knowledge of these concepts.
Why
When planning this lesson we decided to focus on materials-based instruction, which gives
students a chance to actually do the science. This in turn leads to better learning transfer and more
engagement on the part of the students. As per our association with the Lea school, we are doing a
lesson with a group of four student, who we also taught last week. During the procedure part of the
lesson, building the aquarium, our teaching group chose to do a round robin style of student
engagement. This style of student interaction allows for each student to participate in the materials
gathering and materials action fairly. This unit and lesson is important for multiple reasons but two of
the reasons that are most heavily emphasized are modeling and constructing models and understanding
ecosystems. Students need to understand how models work and having such a small self-contained
model makes it easy for them to see the model in action. Its hard for the importance of ecosystems to
overstated, as human beings are part of an ecosystem.
Goals/Objectives (Kelly)
Materials
-1 terrarium
-1 bottle
-1 liters of water
-2 300 ml clear plastic cups
-paper towels
-1 or 2 sprigs of elodea
-10 -15 duckweed plants
-3 dropperfuls of algae
-1 dropper
-1 hand lens
-1 spoon
-1 metric ruler
-2 worksheets
Learning Environment and Management Issues (Kelly)
The students are arranged in a block of four desks. The classroom teacher was the one to arrange them
and as there is limited space in the class, as the guest teachers we have very little ability (and space) to
change the arrangement. One teacher stands at end of the block of desks so that all of the students feel
that they have attention from the teachers and also hopefully to manage behavior through proximity.
If a student misbehaves or goes off task, they will be redirected and have their attention focused
back onto the task. If there are severe behavior management issues, the consequence system of the
classroom teacher will be defaulted too, and she would be asked to step in. As we only guest teachers
we are unfamiliar with the consequence system in play in this particular classroom and the classroom
teacher will be able to implement much better than any of us.
Plan
1) Hook (7 min.) - We are so excited to be back! Emphasize that they worked really well as a
team last time, and that this will be important today as well.
What do you think will happen in the next week? What are you
wondering?
What do you think a model is, based on what we talked about from last
week? Why do you think it is useful in science?
Explain that we will be building the second part of this model, the
aquarium!
Ask Djime to be our Master Artist: make detailed drawing of aquarium for group
during the activity
Build aquarium step by step using list of procedures from teachers guide
(explain that we will take turns like last time, which they did really well. )
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Students take turns: one student reads step and performs that task,
rotating around the table
What living things do you see in this environment? (students contribute one or
two each; we will list the animals we are adding). Liz will be starting a web on
the white board, listing living and nonliving things after the model in the
teacher's guide.
What nonliving things do you see in the aquarium? How do you think they are
important?
4) Conclusion (3 min.)
Thinks about the living and nonliving things in this ecosystem and how they are
related when you make your observations in the coming weeks
Accommodations
If the material is too challenging
Some of the students may find the material challenging, at which point it is important to
reinforce the scaffolding from the terrarium lesson (what is a model, how can you observe a model,
what do you see) and if needed give the students more time to process a new concept. Most
importantly, the students must not feel pressured when learning and understanding new concepts, so
we need to be able to give them more time and make sure they do not feel rushed or pressured, from us
or from peers.
If the there is more challenge needed
If some of the students need more of a challenge we would ask them to go deeper with the
concepts. How do they think the plants are going to interact with each other? Why do they think
that? What other predictions can they make about whats going to happen inside the terrarium? What
is important about this lesson? Why do they think its important to learn this lesson?